Hacker creates SkyJack, a drone that hijacks other drones

drone

Samy Kamkar, a hacker already well known for his past hacks such as crashing MySpace in 2005, has revealed both the hardware as well as software specs on how to build a drone which can find other drones, hack and then give control over to the hacking drone.

This drone has been named the SkyJack, and is built with a Parrot AR.Drone, which is remotely controlled by radio and has two transmitters that are wireless, a small battery, and a Raspberry Pi circuit board. The drone looks for other Parrot drones using their wireless signals and then take control of the signal which guides their operation and also takes over the camera systems as well a flight-control.

For those that don’t know, Parrot drones are those quadcopter helicopter drones you see so often; they are fairly popular and have sold over 500,000 times since release in 2010 by a French company.

It is a bit ironic that this information is released at the same time as Amazon’s announcement that it wants to use drones to deliver packages. “How fun would it be to take over drones, carrying Amazon packages… or take over any other drones, and make them my little zombie drones,” Kamkar wrote in a blog post.

Hopefully Amazon, or other companies who wish to use this approach, take a look at this video and build suitable security into their drones.

[via Wired UK, Arstechnica]

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